Ubisoft has a lot of problems, but one of the biggest ones is that despite having a lot of, in theory, different IPs, I'd argue they really only manage make one game - the giant open-world, climb-a-tower, map icon-vomit, MTX game. To the extent they make things outside of that lane (like Rabbids or Just Dance), those titles tend to be pretty niche or release on a single system like the Switch.
For players, this means Ubisoft isn't really providing a different gameplay experience as much as a slightly different sub-genre. Do you want your open-world game to be Modern Military Bearded Dude flavor, Techno-anarchist flavor, or Ancient History flavor? It's a bit like a Sno Cone. No matter what flavor you pick, they are all ultimately just crushed ice with different hues of food coloring.
That's a problem from a business perspective, because not only are games that large ruinously expensive to produce, they aren't varied enough to attract a particularly diverse audience. If you don't like one of their IPs, chances are there isn't much for you in the rest of their catalogue. Their similarity also doesn't allow one IP to be used as a "palate cleanser" for another. If I've burned already out playing Watchdogs, why should I buy Assassin's Creed when it's more or less an identical gameplay loop?
It honestly doesn't surprise me that they're having a tough time, even before you get to the workplace environment stuff.
Yeah, it's a pretty big disappointment. It's a shame, because I love the idea of a survival horror game where the combat is heavily melee based. It would be an interesting change of pace and could really add to the tension and horror if done right.
I think other posters nailed it by saying the monsters don't represent anything. Like, the Thing is a living embodiment of human distrust and paranoia. The zombies in this game represent . . . something?
To that, I'd also add that writers need to learn that gross design and jump scares /= horror. Good horror comes from tension, which means sometimes it's way more effective if you pull your punches once in a while. That's why Alien: Isolation works - the alien isn't always around, which keeps you guessing as a player. That hissing noise could be the alien. Or it could just be a steam vent on the fritz. In Callisto Protocol, the noise is always the monster. That box? Monster behind it. That closet? Monster in it. Knee deep water? Multiple monsters.
Honestly, I found the game way more frightening in the first few minutes before any monsters showed up. Crash landing only to be wrongfully imprisoned with no explanation, having a bunch of shit surgically implanted in you and facing the rest of your life trapped on an airless rock? That's terrifying. Kind of wish they'd found a way to base the game around that instead.
God. Xenosaga. What a fucking game. What other game can you play where reality is being destroyed by intangible monsters from the realm of imaginary numbers that can only be destroyed by robot Mary Magdalen and Space Jesus in disguise?
It's a shame that the series kind of petered out. The drop in quality from 1 to 2 was pretty extreme, not the least because they badly recast the voice of KOS-MOS. I'd love to know some of the behind-the-scenes things that went on during the development of those games.
As someone who grew up with the Marathon series, I could not be less excited about what Bungie is pitching here. The originals were some of the most distinct, innovative things out there at the time. But no, let's make yet another paint-by-numbers shlooter that's going to be filthy with micro transactions. Wow. How original.
I don't think I will ever entirely understand Dan. He loves James Bond and wants to be seen as a cool dude, but he somehow doesn't like martinis.
I wonder if it is specifically the olives Dan doesn't like in his martinis? He could always just order it clean. I also wonder if he knows you need to specify vodka or you'll usually get gin as a default. If that's the case, I kinda get. Gin martinis are disgusting. Not quite as disgusting as the alcoholic Lime-aid that is a margherita, but still disgusting.
While I will definitely give a thumbs up to playing Prey because it's criminally underrated, I'm not sure how much of it would translate to Deathloop. As someone who adores most of Arkane's library, especially Prey, I found Deathloop to be a colossal letdown. It was easily one of my most disappointing games of the last several years.
The games might look similar on the surface, but there are very, very different design philosophies going on under the hood.
Ehhh. I won't disagree that Horizon might not be as wonderful as a lot of people think it is (it's sneakily on my "Most Disappointing" list for this year), but I dunno if this is the argument you want to make. There are plenty of more reasonable things go after other than the graphics. For example:
The itemization is truly, truly bad. There are too many weapons of the same type that differ in only the slightest of ways and different weapon types are often too similar in function to justify having them as a separate category. It was already an issue in Zero Dawn, but the problem got super-charged in Forbidden West.
In a post-Elden Ring world, this game makes it clear that the "explore by question mark, icon-vomit" open world style needs to be retired. Trudging question mark to question mark just to check things off a list wastes the open world and forfeits whatever sense of "strange new world" wonder they were going for.
The villains in Forbidden West are lame and their plan makes absolutely no sense. They have almost no characterization beyond being eeeeevvvvvviilllllll. And as far as their plan goes, even though they (a) are already capable of surviving on Earth and (b) even though their level of technology would easily allow them to wipe out/enslave/be worshipped as gods by the tribes on the planet, they instead want to destroy all life on Earth, re-terraform it, and then wait however many hundred of years the re-terraforming process will take because . . . rich people are . . . evil . . . or something?
This is easily the single most busted game since Mass Effect Andromeda. I wasn't even able to complete the mission where you get your base.
First time through, I get to the part where you have the deed and need to drive back to the church. Problem is, the rest of the gang doesn't spawn in, so there is no one to talk to and the mission won't advance. Thankfully, I was able to reload a checkpoint which restarted me right at that point. Not great, but at least I didn't lose a lot of time.
Immediately after, you need to defend the church. The second wave of bad guys makes you go to the church graveyard. Game gives me a pop-up saying I need to get to the graveyard or the mission will fail, even though I'm already in the graveyard shooting dudes. Timer runs out, games fades out like the mission failed, but it gets stuck on the loading screen and soft locks the game. Rebooting forces me to start the entire mission over.
Restart the mission, and get to the point where you need to carjack a guy to scare him into giving you the deed to the church. Except the car he's in never spawns. Just an empty street and an objective marker where the car is supposed to be.
At that point I said fuck it and deleted the game. If a mainline mission is bugged in so many different ways that make it impossible to complete, I'm not fighting through the rest of the game.
I think another part of the problem for Saints Row is that in the modern gaming space, older games are easier to find and play than ever. The Saints Row IV and the remastered version of Saints Row: The Third are not only better games, but both are also available on console stores for cheaper than what you would pay for the reboot. In fact, I think you might be able to get both of them for what you would pay for the new one.
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